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Notes on Books

The Staff Engineer's Path

I started reading The Staff Engineer's Path. It's awesome.

Introduction

A few things that really called to me:

Engineers considering this path may have never worked with a staff engineer before, or might have seen such a narrow set of personalities in the role that it seems like unattainable wizardry.

Basically, the lesson is:

  • Embrace uncertainty.

Three pillars of staff engineering are offered:

  • Big-picture thinking
    • think beyond the current time
    • see the forest but sometimes....you'll need to closely inpsect a tree
  • Execution
    • projects get messier and more ambiguous, they'll involve more people and be harder
  • Leveling up (the folks you work with)
    • intentional influence: teaching, mentoring
    • accidental influence: being a role model/example

The rest of the book is broken up into parts based on those three pillars.

Based on the links: